The fender bender seemed inconsequential.
Claudia Ramos’s vehicle was struck from behind in Hyattsville as she drove her youngest child to day care. It was more shocking than damaging, she said.
Then someone called the police.
Ramos waited for the Prince George’s County officer who responded to produce a crash report. As the minutes ticked into an hour, she called a relative to pick up her three children. The other drivers left, but the officer told her to stay.
An unmarked vehicle arrived, and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer approached. “Do you have papers?” Ramos recalled the officer saying. She was taken into federal custody.
Ramos is one of at least three undocumented immigrants placed in deportation proceedings recently after contact with police in Prince George’s, a Maryland suburb that has vowed not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts and to offer a welcoming community for its estimated 80,000 undocumented residents.
